


Life Is Time Enough

by AwkwardAnnie



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century
Genre: Angst, Crime, Drama, Gen, M/M, Robots, Science Fiction, fraught relationships, issues of sentience and personhood, non-permanent death, the psychological consequences of being resurrected
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-09-10
Updated: 2012-10-09
Packaged: 2017-11-13 23:58:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/509162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AwkwardAnnie/pseuds/AwkwardAnnie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A man out of time, a determined detective and a robot that thinks it’s a person take on the most dangerous criminal in New London. How do you live in a world that isn’t your own? What do you do when history wasn’t quite like it was in the books? And what, exactly, is the measure of a man? A re-imagining of Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century in the style of a 50s sci-fi epic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue/The Life and Times of Beth Lestrade

**Author's Note:**

> I was introduced to 22ndC by a friend and was immediately struck first by how ridiculous it is and then by how many classic sci-fi tropes appear briefly but promptly vanish to never be explored further or taken to their logical conclusions. This fic is my attempt to answer the deep philosophical questions which plague me as I watch a silly Saturday morning cartoon, inspired by the work of sci-fi godfather, Isaac Asimov.

Prologue

The autumn breeze blew gently across the Sussex Downs. It rustled the grass on the rolling hills and ticked the ears of rabbits and sheep grazing on the green slopes. It tumbled over a stile and along the narrow footpath that ran beside the white cliffs, where it joined the screech of the seagulls wheeling over the shoreline. It threaded through the bars of the old wooden gate and up the garden path, past the beehives once buzzing with activity that now lay quiet and abandoned, and slipped under the door of the little cottage.

The breeze crept across the stone floor and curled up on the bearskin hearthrug before the dying embers of the fire. Rising with warmth, it reached out across the room, brushing dust from countless small objects; here, a wooden pipe-rack, there, the remains of a set of chemical glassware, and on the mantle the photograph of a woman in a tarnished silver frame. It plucked at the strings of a Stradivarius left open on a chair, kept in perfect tune by fingers now too arthritic to hold a bow.

The door to the bedroom was ajar and the breeze nudged it open a little more. The air was colder here, the room lit by a single candle which guttered and jumped as the breeze passed by. It worried the edges of the eiderdown and caressed the worn, wrinkled face of the old man in the bed, toying with the strands of silver hair pushed back from a high forehead.

On the table by the bed lay a vial of clear liquid and a silver syringe. On the dresser, beside the black-edged card, the watch with the gold sovereign hanging from its chain wound down its spring.

In the bed, Sherlock Holmes closed his eyes for the last time.

 

* * *

 

Chapter 1: The Life and Times of Beth Lestrade

One hundred and seventy-three years later, Beth Lestrade’s alarm clock went off, filling the confines of her bedroom with the opening bars of _O Fortuna_ and ejecting a small plastic propeller-shaped object into the air, where it spiralled down into a heap of dirty clothes. Lestrade hauled herself out of bed, cursing all the way, and ransacked the room, eventually locating the plastic propeller and returning it to its slot atop the alarm clock, whereupon the auditory onslaught immediately ceased. Lestrade liked her alarm clock. It was a ridiculous bit of 21st-century tat she'd picked up for a handful of credits at an antiques fair years ago. It wasn't sleek or stylish and she'd had to get a techie friend of hers to rewire it so that it would work with modern wireless electricity, but she hadn't accidentally overslept a single time since she'd bought it, which was all she wanted from an alarm clock.

It was just as well it was effective; Lestrade was not a morning person. She dragged herself to the bathroom, groaned at her reflection in the mirror, splashed water on her face and tugged on her regulation Yardie bodysuit. Over this she flung a light dressing gown, an old-fashioned affectation she'd picked up as a child. The stereophone in the kitchen turned itself on as she measured out the correct amount of whichever vitamin-rich cereal-based processed breakfast product had been on sale at the supermarket last week. Despite her best efforts, it played neo-Vivaldi at her. Then again, that was what she got for refusing to get rid of a fifty-year-old device.

Lestrade had a fondness for old things. It was probably her father's fault; he had remembered the time before they closed the paper libraries, before electroplastic screens had become ubiquitous. The house had always been full of books, and it was a small house so there hadn’t been much room for anything else. She'd learned to read from books made of thick card, instead of the screens most parents gave their kids when they were old enough not to try to eat them, and over the course of her childhood she must have read every book in that house at least twice. The best ones were the ones other people had read, where you could see where they'd marked an important passage or turned a corner down to keep their place. Her favourite books, though, were the ones her father had kept locked in an airtight box in his study. They weren't much to look at; they were all sorts of different shapes and sizes, some were bound in leather and some in cloth, and one of them was all crinkled and stained, like it had been dropped in a puddle. They were also old, some of them over two hundred years.

They were full of tales of mystery, of crimes and detectives, of love and hate and friendship. But the best thing about them, the reason they were her favourite books, was because every word in them was true. That, her father had explained one evening, was because they had been written as journals. Everything in the books, he said, had happened, and it had happened to a man, who had written it all down so that we could find out about it. This idea had fascinated her as a child, that so many exciting adventures and thrilling stories could actually happen to someone. She'd read those books again and again, as a child and as a young woman, until, on the day she moved into her first flat, her father had handed her a locked airtight box with all the solemnity of a priest passing over a holy relic.

"These are yours now," he'd said. "I hope one day you'll read them to your own children."

So far, she hadn't had any children to read them with, but she still read them nonetheless. The box sat on her bookshelf in the dead centre of her collection of print books, most of which had been presents from her parents for various occasions. They were always a talking point with visitors, some of whom had never seen a paper book outside a museum. This morning, she chose one volume out of the box that she hadn't touched in a while, and sat down to eat her breakfast.

_Mr Sherlock Holmes_ , it began, _who was usually very late in the mornings, save upon those not infrequent occasions when he was up all night, was seated at the breakfast table_.

How appropriate, she thought. She rather suspected that, had she lived in the 19th century, she and Mr Sherlock Holmes would have got on rather well.

* * *

Lestrade’s office in New Scotland Yard looked out at the towers and skyscrapers of central London. Throughout the morning she watched the traffic along the roads and through the air, as she slogged through a pile of paperwork—a marvellously antiquated word, she thought, as all the Yard’s data records had been computerised decades ago. Unfortunately, despite the unstoppable march of progress, no-one had yet invented a piece of software for writing reports which would satisfy the powers that be.

In the middle of the afternoon, there was a tap at her office door.

“Come in.”

"Files on the Johnson case, ma'am," said the young constable who opened the door, handing her a screen.

"Thanks, Stanley." Lestrade flicked through the crime scene report. "Any news on the Chief?"

"In with the Super now, ma'am." Stanley grimaced apprehensively, his eyes flicking up to the ceiling. "You can hear the Super shouting through the door. Doesn't sound good."

"I don't know what he expects us to do," Lestrade grumbled, flicking files from the portable screen to the wall monitor. "We've got all the beats and half of CID on the streets. It’s too damn random. We've got nothing to go on!"

There was an almighty crash from the floor above. Stanley winced.

"That'd be the bust of Napoleon on his desk." he said. "Chief must have told him we need more people."

"I mean, you can't tell people to just _beware of crime_ ," Lestrade carried on. "And we're not even sure all these incidents are connected."

Above their heads, something made of glass shattered. Stanley sighed mournfully. "I liked that vase."

"Pardon me, Inspector," said a metallic voice. It came from the standard-issue law enforcement compudroid which had until then been sat quietly in the corner of the room. "An robbery has been reported at Smyth and Sons jewellers' on Waterloo Road. CID presence has been requested."

Lestrade considered the offer for a moment. "I'll attend," she said. "Thanks, Watson. Sorry, Stanley, but I'll have to look at the Johnson case later. This could be connected to our crime epidemic." She pulled her badge and ioniser pistol out of her desk. "Come along, Watson," she added to the droid, which followed with the single-minded obedience that only a droid can manage.

* * *

The biggest advantage of being a cop, Lestrade thought with a certain smugness as she turned on the siren of the hover-car, was never being stuck in traffic. Of course, you had to deal with all the angry superiors and the irregular hours and a certain number of dead bodies, but there was a satisfaction to seeing the clouds of vehicles part in front of you that made up for most of that. Pleasure in the little things, that's what her dad had always said.

Smyth and Sons on Waterloo Road was an extremely expensive jewellers' which claimed to have been established in 1854, although Lestrade suspected that that was a gimmick—a suspicion which was deepened by the proprietor, who was wearing a tailcoat, cravat and a ridiculously oversized top hat and wringing his hands as he spoke to the officer already there.

"-and when I opened the shop this morning it was gone," he was saying as Lestrade entered.

"Good afternoon, Mr Smyth, Sergeant Wilkins" said Lestrade cheerfully. "I'm-"

"Inspector Lestrade!" proclaimed Smyth. "Yes, yes, I saw you on the news the other night, excellent job with that cat burglar."

"Cat burglar?" Lestrade was confused. "You mean Eliza Princeton? That was months ago."

"Was it?" Smyth peered up at her through a fussy gold pince-nez, still wringing his hands. "Well, anyway, splendid job. First-rate. Now, about my problem."

"Mr Smyth was saying that he is missing a pearl," said Wilkins.

"Not just any pearl, Inspector!" insisted Smyth. "A black pearl! Very rare, very old. It was here when I closed up last night, but this morning it was gone."

"I see," said Lestrade. "Where was the pearl kept?"

"Over here, Inspector." Smyth indicated a glass case on the wall. Inside was a velvet cushion with an indent in the middle the size of a small marble. There was a notable absence of any pearl.

"How does the case open?"

Smyth slid aside an impeccably carved imitation-oak panel to reveal a touchpad. "Every case in this shop is opened with a different six-digit code and my DNA print," he explained. "But it wasn't opened last night. The mechanism records the date, time and duration of every opening, and the logs from last night show that the case wasn't opened at all. That was the first thing I checked."

"Interesting," said Lestrade thoughtfully. "Mr Smyth, do you keep a security droid?"

"Oh, no, no, no," said Smyth, shaking his head anxiously. "It wouldn't do to have an ugly great thing like that in my shop, ruining the aesthetic." He shot a worried look at Lestrade's droid, which was waiting patiently for orders. "Besides, my wife won't have one in the house. She doesn't trust them, you see."

"But you must have surveillance?" Lestrade looked around the little shop, trying to spot any hidden cameras.

"Oh, yes, of course," said Smyth. "But it won't help. I've already looked. Absolutely normal. Not a hair out of place. Oh, Inspector, you must help! I have a buyer coming next week to collect that pearl and I can't afford to turn her down!"

"We'll do our best, Mr Smyth. Right, let's get started. Watson, I'll need a scan of the area. Check for fingerprints, DNA residue, evidence of matter transport, anything out of the ordinary. Got it?"

"Yes, Inspector," said the droid in its clunky voice. As it was scanning the surface of the case with an ultraviolet light, Lestrade turned back to Smyth.

"Mr Smyth, I'd be grateful if you could get me a copy of your surveillance files. The computers at the Yard might be able to pick up something you've missed."

"As you like, Inspector." Smyth pottered off into the back of the shop.

"Do you think this is another one, ma’am?" asked Wilkins as Lestrade examined the door of the shop for signs of forced entry.

"Honestly, Wilkins, I don't know. But, yeah, my gut says it is, and my gut's not wrong that often."

"Here you are, Inspector." Smyth re-emerged from the back room with a data chip. I hope this is helpful somehow-"

"Inspector." The droid interrupted Smyth. "An anomaly has been discovered."

"Show me," Lestrade demanded, crossing to the case.

"There is a fine scratch in the glass," said the droid. "It is undetectable by human vision. Application of a sonic pulse will reveal it." The droid's arm-plate flipped open to reveal a screen. There was a shrill beep and a grainy image appeared on the screen. A few more pulses and the image sharpened.

"Wilkins," said Lestrade. "Does that look like the letter M to you?"

"I'd say so, Inspector."

"Right. Watson, is this a deliberate message?"

"That is probable," said the droid. "The glass is reinforced. Considerable force and heat would have been required. It is unlikely to have occurred by accident."

"Well," said Lestrade. "Looks like our culprit has a call-sign."

* * *

 

“We’ve got robberies all over the place.” Back in New Scotland Yard, Lestrade had a holo-map of the city hovering above the table, with each of the incidents marked with a glowing red dot. “They’re far too organised to be unrelated. I think we’re looking at some sort of syndicate, one with serious financial backing and a genius or three at the helm. Each one is meticulously planned with no trace evidence at the scene—well, at least until today.”

“Are we sure it’s not a terror organisation?” asked Detective Inspector Jones, shuffling files on her personal screen. “The Luna Republicans have been vocal recently, now that the Martian colony has applied for independent status.”

“Nah, the Loonies would have blown something up by now,” said Detective Sergeant Mason dismissively. “Only way they know to communicate.”

“Less of your cheek, Mason,” Chief Inspector Grayson warned. “Lestrade, you said you had something from the latest case?”

Lestrade flicked the sonic image from her wrist-mounted computer to the main screen. “Watson found this carved into the glass. It’s too precise on too hard a surface to be an accident.”

"Is that an M?" asked Jones. Lestrade nodded.

"So, we've got a well-funded criminal genius who signs his work," Mason said. "He autographed any of the others?"

"Nothing was reported from any of the other scenes," said Lestrade. "But I'd recommend we re-examine them for similar marks."

Grayson nodded. "Agreed. If we can tie some of these cases together that's at least a start. I'll get some of our people on it now." He tapped out a command on his computer.

"There's no connection between the locations, is there?" asked Jones.

"We haven't found one yet," replied Lestrade. "I've had Watson cross-reference owners, proprietors, previous uses of the space, everything I could think of. There's nothing tying all these places together."

"Why've you got to call it Watson?" Mason sneered at the droid which was sat absolutely motionless behind Lestrade. "It's bad enough you drag it everywhere like a replacement sergeant, without giving it a name as well. It's a robot, not a puppy."

"That's _enough_ , Mason," Grayson said severely. "Lestrade can call her tin can whatever the hell she wants as long as she gets results. Now get cracking, all of you. We need to shut this down before it turns into any more of a PR disaster than it already is."

"Don't you pay attention to Mason," Lestrade told the droid once the others had trickled out of her office. "He's just a dick. I think he's still annoyed that I wouldn't take him as my second and he ended up with McAngus."

"I'm sorry, Inspector," said the droid. "I don't understand. Please explain."

"Oh, never mind," Lestrade smiled. Watson often had trouble with the way she phrased things. Sometimes she forgot that it wasn't human.

Her wrist communicator beeped and she answered. "Lestrade here."

"It's me, Inspector," said the communicator.

"Ah, Stanley. Always a pleasure, never a chore. What have you got for me?"

"I'm at the antiques place on Beaumont Street," said Stanley. "I'm not technically on duty, I just popped in for a look and got chatting with the owner, she knew my mum back when I was a kid, you see, and she was asking after my brother and me and-"

"Get to the point, Stanley."

"Sorry, Inspector. Anyway, she says she's missing something. She didn't report it because it wasn't really that valuable, just an old carving of a horse, but I thought you might want to hear it. I've got a picture if it'll help."

"Okay, send it through." There was a beep as the file arrived, and Lestrade pulled it up on the main screen. It was a small model horse, carved in wood. It was mostly black, but it had delicately painted white socks and a wide white stripe down its forehead. "Aw, it looks like Silver Blaze," Lestrade said, amused. Then she stopped. "Oh my god."

"Inspector?" came Stanley's voice over the communicator. "Have you got something?"

"I don't know, it could be nothing... Watson!" The droid jerked into life and looked at her. "The robberies. What was taken from each place?"

"Richmond jewellers', one coronet with inset beryl,” the droid intoned. “Timpson and Green's Antiques, one early 20th century model of a submarine; home of Mrs V Hunter, three copper beech trees; home of Miss W Darcy, one pet swamp adder; Mayfair Antiques, one discoloured model soldier, approximately 19th century; Smyth and Sons, one black pearl-"

"Yes, thanks, that'll do. Stanley!"

"Still here, Inspector."

"Look at the things they've taken! They're cases!"

"I'm sorry?" said Stanley. "I don't follow, Inspector."

"Listen: we've got the Beryl Coronet, the Copper Beeches, the Blanched Soldier. The submarine is the Bruce-Partington plans, the swamp adder is the Speckled Band, and the black pearl is from the Six Napoleons!"

"Sorry, ma'am, not ringing any bells."

"Oh my god, does no-one crack a history book once in a while? They're all cases solved by Sherlock Holmes!"

* * *

 

"So he's a maniac," said Grayson, when Lestrade presented her theory to him. "Fancies himself as the next James Moriarty."

"That's what I think, sir," Lestrade agreed. "He's familiar with the history, he's read Doctor Watson's reports. Given the skill it must have taken to pull these heists off, I'd say he's got fair claim to the title."

"Don't you start getting impressed by this maniac. Now look, I'm putting you in charge of this investigation. You know all that business with Sherlock Holmes, friend of the family and all that, we'll need someone with an idea of how this guy might act. I want you to liaise with the guys in Psych. Build up a profile. I want to know where he's likely to strike next. Understood?"

"Yes, sir."

In the elevator to the Department of Criminal Psychology, Lestrade's communicator beeped at her.

"Hello again, Inspector!"

"Hello, Stanley."

"Just calling to say I went back to the antiques shop, you know, the one missing the model horse—anyway, I went back with a sonic imager and I found another M! Scratched into the glass, just like the photo the Chief sent round to everyone."

Another sign! "Good work. He's playing with us, Stanley."

"What are you going to do, Inspector?"

"First I'm going to talk to Pysch. Between us, I bet we can figure out his next target. And then we're going to nab him in the act.

* * *

 

"-and the bike shop is here." Lestrade pointed it out on the map, adding a green dot to the blue outline. "We think he's likely to go for a hover-bike, that's an overt reference to The Solitary Cyclist as well as a tangential one to The Priory School. Psych reckons he'd appreciate two for the price of one, and Ad Astra's the biggest retailer of hover-bikes in London."

"Then we stake out the shop," said Jones. "Full team, the works. Catch him in the act."

"We can't send a full team out just on a hunch!" Mason protested.

"Agreed." Grayson nodded. "But I'm not going to ignore it either. Lestrade, Mason, you go down there. I don't care how you do it—sit in a car out front the old-fashioned way if you have to—just make sure nothing gets taken."

"What, now? It's nearly eight!"

"That's what overtime's for, Mason! Now you get down there before I have to-"

"Pardon me, Chief Inspector," said Lestrade's droid, a split-second before Grayson's computer let out a wail. "There is an incident in progress at Ad Astra Sports," the droid continued as Grayson pulled up the report on the table screen.

"That's our man!" said Lestrade triumphantly. "Mason, with me. You too, tin can," she added, bumping the droid with her elbow as she passed. "Let’s roll."

* * *

 

The back door of the shop was locked, but that didn't stop Lestrade's boot. Thank God some people still made doors out of wood, she thought. She ordered the droid to wait outside and headed in, pistol charged and ready.

The back room was deserted and absolutely silent. The walls were lined with shelf after shelf of ambiguously labelled boxes, but none of them looked an inch out of place. Lestrade's footsteps disturbed the dust on the floor. There was the distinct feeling that no-one had cleaned for a while. She heard Mason move into position to her left as she headed down the aisle of shelves. Say what you liked about Mason; he was an arrogant bastard but he was a good copper when he needed to be.

The door to the shop floor was ajar; Lestrade could see the line of light from her position. She crept closer, eyes flicking to the left and right, when her foot bumped against something hard and metallic. It was the remains of a security droid, the head dented and the torso smashed in. Lestrade swore under her breath. She hissed for Mason and jerked her head to indicate he should check the shop floor. Meanwhile she knelt down to examine the broken droid. The damage to the head didn't seem extensive enough to have caused a total shut-down, and the torso damage, while severe, shouldn't have prevented it from standing. It was messy, though; more messy than the other scenes. Something had gone wrong.

"Floor's clear," Mason said in normal tones, strolling into the back room. "We've missed him."

"How can you be sure?"

"Front door's been unlocked from the inside. And the cheeky sod left us his card." Mason held up a piece of old-fashioned paper. There was a large, elegant M on it.

* * *

 

"Apparently the owner only bought the droid yesterday, because he was worried about the spree of crimes," Lestrade explained to the increasingly disgruntled investigative team. "Our mysterious M probably planned the job a few days before, so he wasn't expecting resistance."

"So he cocked up. That happens." Mason looked round the room at the assembled detectives. "How does it help?"

"It doesn't," said Lestrade. "Not directly. But it means he's human. He makes mistakes. Sooner or later he's going to make a more serious mistake than an unexpected security droid. It also means that he might not be as well-informed as we thought."

Lestrade's communicator beeped.

"Don't you have a home to go to, Stanley?"

"Sorry, Inspector, it's Robotics here."

"Oh, right. Go ahead... Dave, is it?"

"Mike, actually. Dave's the other one. Anyway, we've been working on the security droid you had brought in-"

"Way past shoving-off time!" added a distant voice—Dave, presumably.

"Yeah, and we think we've got something."

"Let's have it." Lestrade glanced over at Mason, who was scowling furiously. "We could use some good news up here."

"Well, it looks like the droid was shorted out, possibly with a micro-EMP, after it was smashed about. Most of the processor is wiped but we've managed to pull what looks like the last few seconds of visual input off the black box. No audio, though."

"Better than nothing. Send it up." 

Lestrade pulled the video file up onto the screen. It flickered for a moment and then solidified into an image of the same back room they'd just investigated. The droid was moving slowly along the row of shelves, looking to the left and right. When it reached the end of the row, it turned neatly into the next. It repeated this pattern at the same steady pace for a few more rows. Then the feed suddenly swung around to show a rat-faced man backing up and shouting something. The man glanced around frantically and grabbed some sort of metal tool from a shelf, swinging wildly. His first swing jolted the droid sideways, and it raised an arm, but before it could deploy the stun gun all security droids had built-in, the man swung the tool into the droid's head. The feed fizzed and cracked and the droid went toppling to the ground.  For a moment all the video showed was the side of a box, then something turned the droid's head.

A man looked out from the screen. He was dark-haired and clean-shaven, dressed in a strange old-fashioned shirt with a wing collar and a waistcoat. His eyes were brilliant and piercing, but he smiled cruelly. Then the man took something out of his pocket and said something to the droid. The video feed trembled and shook, and then stopped abruptly.

For a moment there was silence in the incident room. Then Lestrade spoke.

"Watson," she said hoarsely. "Find me a photo of Professor James Moriarty, born 1838. Preferably from his thirties, I think."

"Found," said the droid after a couple of seconds. "Taken upon publication of his treatise _On the dynamics of an asteroid_ , 1870." An image flashed up onto the screen beside the video.

"My God," breathed Grayson.

"That's... that's not a mask, is it?" asked Jones nervously.

"That's far too good to be a mask," Lestrade said. "Chief, I know you were joking when you said this guy fancied himself the next Moriarty..."

"So, what, he's had some serious surgery?" Mason suggested. "We said it could be a mania. Guy thinks he's actually Moriarty, goes as far as to have his face hacked about so that he looks like him, then goes on a crime spree."

"Maybe he's a clone."

The room turned to look at Jones, who shrugged. "Just an idea. It's one thing to think you're a criminal genius; it's another entirely to actually _be_ one, and this guy's got it down. Intelligence is genetic, at least to some degree, right? So if you clone a genius, you're going to get another genius. And I bet he _knows_ he's a clone of Moriarty, so he's yanking us about with all these Holmes-related thefts."

"I think Jones is onto something," Lestrade agreed. "We said this guy needed financial backing. A syndicate with the resources to clone a long-dead mathematics professor would be more than capable of funding a crime spree. If it was just one guy there's no way he'd have the connections or the money to pull this off."

"Okay, okay," said Grayson. "This is the best we’ve got; let’s work with it for now. Say we _are_ looking at a crime syndicate. Say they've cloned Moriarty and now they've unleashed him on London. What do we do?"

"There's only one man in history who ever outsmarted Moriarty," Lestrade said. "If they can bring back Moriarty, we need to bring back that man."

"Are you seriously suggesting-" Mason started.

"We don't have any other option!" Lestrade insisted. "We need to resurrect Sherlock Holmes!"


	2. The Tricentennial Man

"Absolutely not!"

"Chief, it's the only lead we've got left," Lestrade protested.

Grayson looked around at the startled faces.

"The rest of you get out, now. Look, Lestrade," he continued after the room had cleared. "You can't just bring people back from the dead."

"Why not? They've been doing it with rats and monkeys for years, even specimens that had been dead for ages. They were only saying on the ‘net the other day that it's theoretically possible to bring a human being back."

"That's not what I mean and you know it," said Grayson sternly. "I mean you can't go around resurrecting people willy-nilly. That's not how it works."

"We don't have a choice, Chief. We need Holmes, he's the only one who's good enough to outsmart Moriarty."

"We're not dealing with Moriarty, we're dealing with a whackjob who _thinks_ he's Moriarty, and we don't need a 19th-century rent-a-cop to sort that out." Grayson leaned over the desk and punctuated his next words with a jab of his finger. "Listen to me, Inspector. You are going to go home and get a good night's sleep. Then you're going to come back in tomorrow morning and we are going to tackle this like reasonable adults; no funny ideas, no silly theories and no dead detectives. This isn't a kids' cartoon, this is Scotland Yard and you are a detective inspector. Now act like one. Is that understood?"

Lestrade scowled, but composed herself.

"Yes, sir."

* * *

"Bugger that," Lestrade told her droid as they sped at street level through the City. "Chief wouldn't know a good idea if it jumped up and down on his head wearing the Super's moustache. Time to take matters into our own hands." She dialled a number on the hover-car's internal communicator; the other end was picked up by a haggard-looking woman.

"Can I help you?" she asked.

"Good evening, ma'am. Inspector Lestrade, Scotland Yard. Are you Dr Norton?"

"One of the two, yes. What can I do for the Yard at this hour?"

"You and your husband are working in the field of revitalisation technology, yes?"

"That's correct."

"Is it possible with current technology to resurrect a human being given a well-enough-preserved body?"

Dr Norton frowned through the screen. "Are you asking hypothetically, or..."

"I am asking: if I brought you a dead body, this evening if possible, could you bring it back to life?"

"Is this official Yard business?" asked Dr Norton sceptically.

"Absolutely," Lestrade lied smoothly. "Orders from above."

"Well..." Dr Norton rubbed at her eyes. "We haven't had a successful test on a human subject yet. We think we've isolated the issue now but it’s all still technically theoretical. Besides, it's not entirely legal. Or ethical."

"I understand, ma'am, but this is absolutely critical in an extremely important case."

There was a sigh from the speaker. “Then yes. Yes, we could do it.”

“Great. Warm up the computers.”

“Inspector!” The speakerphone sounded shocked. “Are you positive this is official?”

“Straight up, Dr Norton. This could be the pivotal moment in this case. Will you do it?”

There was silence from the other end of the line. Then, “Bring it in.”

"Thank you for your co-operation, ma'am," said Lestrade cheerily. “I’ll be there in an hour.”

* * *

 Baker Street was an odd place nowadays. The skyscrapers had crept slowly down from the top end in much the same way that they had swallowed the rest of London. They stopped, however, somewhere around the mid-hundreds, and the rest of the street was the same row of charming town-houses it had always been. It was strange, a puddle of Victoriana in the middle of the towering buildings all around.

Number 221 was a museum, and Lestrade knew it well. Her father had first taken her when she was very small, after they had read the journals she now kept locked away in her flat and she had refused to believe they were real. He had showed her the iron railings, the door with the brass knocker, the seventeen steps leading up to the cozy sitting room. He'd held her up to look at the cases of artefacts, and she'd hidden behind his leg from the menacing waxwork of Professor Moriarty that lurked upstairs.

Her father had laughed when she'd announced at the age of fourteen that she was going to be a detective. "It's in your blood, girl," he'd said, and patted her on the shoulder. "More than it ever was in mine. It's time there was a Lestrade in Scotland Yard again."

And so she'd worked, first at school, then at university. It had been hard and unrelenting, but whenever she felt like giving up, there was a voice like satin in the back of her head, telling her to push just that little bit harder. The night before her first interview, she'd taken the hover-bus down to Baker Street. For half an hour she stood on the pavement in front of the old museum, eyes closed, imagining the rain on the cobblestones, the clop of hooves and the rattling of hansoms down the road, the sound of a violin drifting down from the window. It was the closest she'd ever come to prayer.

The museum was on its last legs now, though. Money was short and visitors were few.  Rumour had it that a developer had their eyes on the place and were planning on levelling the whole lot as soon as it folded and turning it into a bank. Where once the row of little houses had stood clean and shining, now the paint was peeling, the brass knocker tarnished. Some local hooligans had scrawled something across the ground-floor window.

The front door was locked, understandably, but with an old-fashioned key lock as opposed to the more modern number-pad or magnetic lock, and Lestrade had a skeleton key. Strictly speaking it was Yard property to be used only with the approval of the Chief Inspector or higher, but given that she was already going against a direct order a little bit of unauthorised housebreaking would be the least of her worries. She slid the key into the lock, waited as the malleable metal shaped itself to fit neatly against the tumblers of the lock, and turned it. The door opened, dragging on the threadbare carpet of the hallway.

"Come on, Watson," she said to the droid. "Home, sweet home for you!"

Lestrade lead the way past the paintings and the wall displays, down to the basement and another locked door. This one was, bizarrely, more heavily guarded than the front door, with an electromagnetic seal and an access code.

"Open it, please, Watson."

It took the droid some time to run through all the possible access codes, but finally there was a thunk as the magnets disengaged and the door swung ponderously inwards.

"Lights."

The room was bathed in incandescent light and there it was, in the middle of the room. The metal casing and the blinking lights of the cryostasis field looked strange, almost alien, but what they enclosed was perhaps stranger still. This was one artefact that was never on display. Her father had brought her down here once as a child, after a long conversation with the curator of the museum. She'd been shocked that the wrinkled, hollow creature in the pod had ever been the dashing figure that filled her dreams. Now, as an adult, standing in front of the long-dead body of one Sherlock Holmes of 221B Baker Street, she understood a little better.

"Right, let's get him in the car."

* * *

Of the many things Lestrade had never imagined she would do, ringing someone's doorbell and announcing to the middle-aged and slightly vacant-looking man who opened it, "Hello, you must be the other Dr Norton. I've got a body for you." was definitely a stand-out. The fact that the man responded with "Ah, jolly good, my wife said to expect you." did not help matters.

"So, who is this fellow?" asked Dr Norton as they floated the pod up to the laboratory.

"Sorry, can't tell you. Witness protection and all that."

"Really? How mysterious. He looks vaguely familiar."

The laboratory had much less equipment in it than Lestrade had been expecting. Most of the space was taken up by a bank of computers. Lestrade was amused to think that, despite computers getting smaller and smaller all the time, there apparently came a point where you just had to make them bigger again. She stood back as Dr Norton moved the pod into the middle of the room and began connecting it up to the machinery. Once the cables were arranged to his satisfaction, he attached a thick hose to the air intake.

"You don't have to return this pod, do you?" he asked. "The bioreconstruction solution is a bit tricky to remove."

"It's fine, I wasn't planning on giving it back."

Dr Norton nodded and initiated the procedure. There was a sudden silence as the cryostasis field shut down then the pod began to fill with a viscous green liquid.

"The process of reconstructing and rejuvenating the cells will take some time," Dr Norton explained. "I imagine it will be completed by the morning. If you like we can vidcom you before we begin the final stage."

"If it's all the same to you, Doctor," said Lestrade. "I'd like to stay here. Someone should keep an eye on him."

"He's not going anywhere, my dear," said Dr Norton kindly. "But, as you like it. I'll be off to bed now. My wife will check in with you in the morning."

"Thanks, Doctor. Goodnight."

Lestrade sat down on the floor opposite the pod as Dr Norton's footsteps retreated downstairs. Around her, the machinery hummed softly. It must be nearly midnight, she thought. Not long to wait, and it wasn't as if she could sleep from all... the... excitement...

* * *

Morning. She knew it was morning even though there were no windows in the lab. The machinery still buzzed quietly, but she knew it was time. She got to her feet and looked around, but there was no sign of the Drs Norton. But there, in the middle of the floor, was the pod. It was standing upright now—had it always been like that? As she watched, the green liquid slowly drained away; the lid of the pod opened with a hiss and out he stepped, tall and magnificent, as casually as if he were stepping out of a horse-drawn cab. He crossed the room in four long strides, unashamed of his own nakedness, and stopped in front of her. For a moment she stared up into sparkling grey eyes, then he bowed gracefully.

"Sherlock Holmes," he said, in a voice like polished jet. "At your service."

Then he frowned. "Inspector Lestrade?" he asked.

"Yes, that's me," she said, feeling rather foolish.

"Inspector Lestrade?" he asked again with a woman's voice. That was strange. "Inspector? _Inspector_!"

Lestrade awoke with a jolt to find Dr Norton—of the female variety this time—crouched next to her, looking less tired than she had the previous night.

"Good morning, Inspector," she said with a gentle smile.

"Whuh-" Lestrade rubbed at her face. There was a horrible twinge all down one side of her neck; it'd been a while since she'd spent the night on a hard floor. "What time is it?"

"A little after half five," Dr Norton said, straightening up. "It's time to begin the final stage. You said it was urgent, otherwise I would have let you sleep."

Lestrade dragged herself to her feet. Something in her back clicked. "No, that's fine; much longer and I wouldn't have been able to move. Is he..." She gestured at the pod.

"See for yourself."

Lestrade managed to stop herself actually _running_ over to look. She leaned on the metal, wiped away the gathered condensation with her sleeve and stared.

"My god."

It was like looking at an illustration. There was the high forehead, the beaked nose, the sleek black hair floating like a halo in the green fluid. Just like in the books, just like in her dreams.

"He's turned out nicely," said Dr Norton, as if she were talking about a cake instead of a person. "Of course, the hardest part is the resuscitation. We haven't been able to resuscitate any of our previous subjects." She pressed a button and there was a whirring noise as the green fluid drained away. "It's helpful that he was well-preserved. How long has he been kept?"

"Just under 200 years."

Dr Norton gave her an incredulous look. "Keep your secrets, then," she said with a laugh. "Now, stand back, let's get this open."

There was the hiss of escaping air and then Dr Norton swung the lid of the pod up. She gave an appreciative whistle.

"Hey!"

"Oh, come now, Inspector," Dr Norton chuckled. "I am a woman of the world. But if it will help, I do have something to preserve your friend's modesty—such as it is." She pulled a metallic blanket from a storage unit, spread it over the body in the pod and began connecting up a collection of electrodes and wires to the chest. Then she fitted the helmet, which absolutely bristled with wires, and retreated to the console. "Stand back, please, Inspector, we don't want the current to arc." She waited until Lestrade had taken several steps back, then began to dial up one of the settings.

If she were to be honest with herself, Lestrade had expected a giant lever, a great spark of electricity and a crack of thunder. What she got instead was a barely audible whine and a little red bar on the screen which crept upwards as Dr Norton increased the power. The monitors showed no vital signs, no evidence of brain activity. It was all rather anticlimactic. Then the red bar reached the top of the screen. Dr Norton surveyed the readings, nodding to herself, then placed her finger over a large button.

"Here goes nothing," she said, and pressed it. There was a crack like a gunshot and the body in the pod jerked, but there was no change on the monitors. "Come on," Dr Norton coaxed. "We've been over this a thousand times, you can do it..." She pushed the button again. There was another tremendous crack, then somehow, impossibly, the sudden inrush of air as the man in the pod convulsed violently, gasping for breath like a drowning man—which, Lestrade thought dizzily as her knees threatened to give out, was probably not far from the truth.

"It worked!" Dr Norton exclaimed. "Heavens above, it worked! We did it! Quick, help me get him out of the wires," she ordered, rushing forward to catch the man as he collapsed backwards and removing the helmet. "It's okay, we've got you," she murmured soothingly. "Take it easy. I'm going to give you a sedative, help you rest for a bit, okay?" She pressed an autoinjector to his neck and he sank slowly down onto the cushions of the pod. "There we go. My god, I can't believe we did it. I have to com my husband, he needs to see this, and he'll be able to examine him properly, see if everything's working. Does this fellow have a name?"

"Holmes," said Lestrade, her face flushed with excitement and disbelief. "His name's Sherlock Holmes."

* * *

"I read about him when I was a lad, you know," said the other Dr Norton, noting something down on a pocket screen. "It was the done thing back then, reading old adventure stories. You're sure it's really him?"

"Yup," said Lestrade. She'd pulled up a folding stool and was sat by the medical cot, watching a man born 250 years ago breathing steadily while Dr Norton measured blood pressure and heart rate and recorded everything meticulously. "He was...  a friend of the family, I guess."

Realisation spread across Dr Norton's features. "Goodness gracious, how could I forget? Inspector Lestrade! How wonderful. Keeping up the family business, then?"

"Not really," Lestrade laughed. "I think I'm the first one since the Lestrade that Holmes knew."

"How romantic," Dr Norton's wife—she'd started demanding that Lestrade call her Elaine, which was in many ways a relief—sighed. "In the classical sense, of course." She was still tidying away the various wires and equipment from the rejuvenation process. "So, when you said this was an urgent request from the Yard...?"

"We need his help," Lestrade admitted. "He's the only lead we've got left."

"Well, we have no idea how the rejuvenation process affects the subject psychologically," said Dr Norton. "He may not be of much use to you."

"Anything's better than nothing."

"Indeed. At any rate, he seems perfectly healthy. Heart rate, blood pressure, brain activity all appear normal for an adult male of about thirty or so. He should come round from the sedative fairly soon. It might be easier for him to deal with just you; my wife and I can potter off for a bit if that would help."

"Thanks, Doctor. That's probably a good idea."

"Very well. If you need us you can reach us by vidcom. Should we, er-" Dr Norton gestured at Lestrade's droid, which had been standing by the door awaiting orders since the previous evening. "-take your metal fellow with us?"

"No, he can stay. Watson, go sit in the corner over there, please."

Elaine Norton chuckled as the droid stomped past her. "Oh, Dr Watson, how the mighty have fallen. We shall see you later, Inspector, and do be gentle with him!"

The door slid shut behind them, leaving the lab eerily quiet.

"Just you and me now," Lestrade told the sleeping man. "Well, and Watson, but he doesn't really count."

The lab was warm, the lights turned down a little as Dr Norton had suspected the subject would be sensitive to light for a while. Lulled by the background hum of the computers, Lestrade found herself nodding off, until suddenly a slight sound caught her attention. The sleeping man groaned again, eyes blinking unsteadily. Then he opened them fully. He looked at her, and she looked at him.

_Say something, you idiot!_ Lestrade yelled at herself. _Something big and impressive!_

"Welcome to the twenty-second century, Mr Holmes!"

It was hard to say what she'd expected would happen. The copper in her had expected questions: "Where am I?" "How did I get here?" "Why have you brought me here?". The 7-year-old who had hidden from the waxwork Moriarty had hoped he would leap up and ask what the trouble was. The sensible woman between them anticipated a certain level of disbelief and nervousness.

None of them had expected him to recoil violently from her, tumble inelegantly off the cot and back up against the wall, his movements too fast, too sudden, like he was used to fighting his own body with every step. She hadn't expected the expression of utter terror on his face, or the way his fingers groped across the smooth metal wall for something to hold.

For a moment they stared one another down. Lestrade didn't know what to do. She could deal with scared people; that was part of her job. You had to be good at dealing with people who had seen the most horrific things. You learned to look into their eyes and let them look into yours, like equals. But _his_ eyes...they weren't bright and sparkling like they were in the books, like they’d been in her dream. They were frightened, lonely and so impossibly _old_ , and she'd never seen anything like it.

And then, suddenly, he spoke, and his voice wasn't silk, or jet, or any other precious material. It was raspy and rough from disuse and the chemicals of the rejuvenation process, like the last breath of a dying man.

"If you are an angel," he said, and Lestrade knew the look of a man in the throes of terror trying desperately to hang on to the thread of sanity. "Then I am afraid your prophets have been less than accurate."

At any other time, Lestrade might have taken offence at that, but all she felt now was a tremendous sense of disappointment.

"I'm not an angel," she said, and she took a step towards him, arms spread to show she wasn't carrying a weapon. "My name is Detective Inspector Beth Lestrade of Scotland Yard, and I-"

"Lestrade?" Holmes made a sound which could have been a laugh. "Of course you are, and I'm the King of Bohemia. If you aren't an angel, then you are a devil, and a sorry one at that."

"I'm not a devil either," Lestrade said, trying her best to sound reassuring as she took another. "Listen, it's the year 2103 and-"

"Enough!" Holmes rasped. "Enough of this nonsense. One life is time enough for me. Angel, devil, whatever you care to call yourself, be gone and let me die in peace. "

That stopped Lestrade in her tracks.

"Why would you want to-" she began, and then the realisation was like a weight wrapped around her heart, dragging her down. "Oh, no. Oh, god." She'd been fooled by his face, so young and clean, but his eyes were the eyes of an old man who'd reached the end of a long and tiring life and, instead of rest, instead of respite, had found himself back where he started. And she'd been the one to haul him back from the grave.

* * *

"Is this my punishment?" he asked eventually, when they'd reached an impasse of sorts, with her sat in one corner of the lab and he in another with his knees pulled up to his chin as though he were trying to hide from the world. "Was the sum of my countless small sins so great, that you will not let me go quietly into the night?"

"You've done nothing worthy of punishment," she said, because it was the truth, and because there was nothing else to say. He laughed, a dry, hollow sound without humour.

"You don't know me very well."

"I thought I did, once."

The silence dragged on, thick and oppressing.

"He's not here, is he?"

She didn't insult him by asking who he meant. There was only one person it could be.

"No. No, he's-- Dr Watson's not here."

Holmes nodded once, almost imperceptibly. "Dead?" His voice cracked on the single syllable, and hers croaked in sympathy.

"Yes."

"He is still dead." The word echoed unnaturally around the metal walls of the laboratory. "He is still dead, and somehow I am not."

"I'm sorry," she whispered, for all the good it did. "I'm so, so sorry."

Holmes didn't speak another word for almost twenty minutes, while Lestrade tried to think desperately of something to do, something to say to make it even a little bit better.

"Where are we?" Holmes asked suddenly. "If this is not the afterlife, then we must be somewhere. Where?"

"London," Lestrade said, relieved to finally have something to talk about. "We're in London. Kensington, although it's probably changed a bit since you saw it last."

"And you say it's... the future?" Am I to expect to be attacked by brutish ape-beings if I set foot outside?"

Lestrade actually laughed at that, surprising herself. "No, no Morlocks here. Morlock-free zone, London. Can't promise anything about the rest of the country, though. Hear the north's still pretty wild. You, er, you've read Wells?"

Holmes snorted at that. "Hardly. Romantic nonsense, the lot of it. Watson read it and wouldn't stop talking about it for weeks." His face fell and he lapsed into silence once more.

"How long ago..." Lestrade couldn't bring herself to finish the question. Holmes shrugged.

"Two weeks? Three? What does it matter? If what you say is true then it is so far in the past as to be insignificant." He paused, then looked straight at her. "Tell me about your London."

"Why?"

He looked at her as if she were mad--and she was starting to suspect that she wasn't far from it. "Because if you tell the truth, then the London I love is two hundred years dead. If I must begin again, then I need data. Tell me anything. Everything."

So she did, as best she could. She started with history. He'd lived through the first world war, so she told him about the second and third. She told him about computers and how the world ran on sunlight and hydrogen instead of coal and petrol. He'd snorted disbelievingly when she told him about the Space Race, how man had walked on the Moon, and then on Mars. Finally, when she thought she'd said everything she could, she told him about himself, how once his had been a household name, and about the locked air-tight box on her bookshelf.

"Do you want them back?" she asked. "I mean, I guess they were yours long before they were mine."

Holmes was silent for a moment, his eyes fixed on a corner of the room. "No," he said finally. "Not yet, anyway. Keep them safe. For now, I remember."

Lestrade nodded.

"I guess I should tell you why you're here," she said. "We... we need your help. With a case."

"So you say," Holmes said dismissively. "I can't imagine what you think I can do."

"You're a detective!"

"Retired!"

"That didn't stop you in that business with the jellyfish," Lestrade shot back.

"Inspector Lestrade," Holmes said dangerously. "I may not look it, but I am seventy-seven years old. For the last twenty years I haven't solved a mystery more devilish or macabre than to ascertain the most efficient organisation of a beehive!"

"It's about Moriarty."

"Dead. Completely and utterly. I spent three years of my life making sure of that."

Lestrade sighed. "I know this is hard to understand, but we think someone may have... cloned him. Made a copy, you know. There's someone committing robberies all over London. Robberies planned meticulously, with absolutely no trace evidence. Robberies that are related to cases _you've_ solved. And now he's started signing his work. Look." Lestrade stood up and flicked the image of the letter M from the jewellers' onto the main screen of the computer, then the image recovered from the security droid.

The change was instantaneous. Holmes sprang up and rushed over, peering at the screen.

"Give me everything you have on the case," he demanded.

"Oh, that got you moving," Lestrade said, a touch put-out.

"I gave some of the best years of my life to stop Moriarty and his evil organisation,” Holmes said. “I am old and tired now but I will not have my work invalidated so easily. Data, now. Then perhaps when this is done I can finally rest."

"Right, but, er," Lestrade averted her eyes and gestured generally up and down Holmes' form. "First we need to get you some clothes."


	3. Sherlock Holmes, Space Detective

Fortunately, the Drs Norton were more than happy to lend a few spare clothes for a good cause. Holmes received the luridly coloured synthetic garments graciously, although Lestrade did see him wrinkle his nose at them when no-one else was looking. The Nortons in turn were eager for Holmes to stay, given that he was the first successful subject of their not-entirely-legal experiments, but Lestrade was insistent that time was of the essence. In her haste, she had ushered Holmes almost to the Nortons' front door, making vague promises to bring him back after the case was closed, before she realised that something was missing.

"Oh my god," she said. "I've forgotten Watson!" And she took off for the lab, ignoring Holmes' confused exclamation.

The droid, Lestrade discovered as she stuck her head around the door of the lab, hadn't moved from where it had been sat.

"Let's go, tin can!" she called, and the droid followed just in time to run into Holmes, who had dashed after Lestrade when she disappeared abruptly. Holmes gave a cry of alarm and backed away from the metal figure.

"Oh, right." Of course, Holmes wouldn't have any idea what a droid was, and in all the confusion she’d somehow managed to miss them out of her potted history of the 21st century. "Mr Holmes, this is my law enforcement droid, he has a serial number but I can't remember what it is so I call him Watson. He also answers to 'tin can' and 'hey, you'. Watson, this is Mr Sherlock Holmes, I've told you about him before. You take orders from him if he asks."

“Acknowledged,” intoned the droid. “Good morning, Mr Holmes.”

"What _is_ it?" asked Holmes, horror and disgust battling for dominance of his face.

"Er," said Lestrade, which was not the ideal answer. "You saw the computers in the lab, right? I explained what they do, they’re basically thinking machines. It's like one of those on legs. It obeys my orders and does things like crime scene scanning, contacting the Yard and telling me when I have an appointment with the dentist. Although _technically_ it's not supposed to be used for that last one."

"And you have named it Watson," Holmes said, his voice dead. "Since this whole charade could not possibly be any more disturbing or perverse."

"Oh, yeah, I guess that's probably not what you want to hear right now. Sorry. Look, if it helps I could call it something else for a bit, it won't mind," she offered.

"I don't care one whit what you call it," Holmes said brusquely. "As long as it stays away from me. Are we departing now?"

Lestrade agreed and finally they emerged into the morning sunlight. Lestrade headed for where she’d left the hover-car taking up half the pavement (another perk of working for the Yard), but realised halfway there that Holmes hadn’t followed her. Looking back, she saw the world’s greatest detective standing in the middle of a grubby street in bright modern clothes several sizes too big for him, his dark hair rumpled and his mouth slightly open, staring up at the sky, where morning traffic flowed around the skyscrapers with their neon lights and flashing advertisements. In all her years on the Force, Lestrade had never seen anyone look so utterly lost.

Holmes spent the trip back to Lestrade's flat discreetly gripping the side of the hover-car under white knuckles and muttering oaths under his breath. Once there he refused to budge from the car and Lestrade left him staring out at the city while she changed and freshened up. She left the droid in the living room and placed the box of journals, now unlocked, in front of it.

"We need as much information on Holmes' cases as we can get," she told it. "I need you to read these--or scan them, assimilate them, absorb them, whatever it is you do. Got it? Be careful, they're antiques. When you're done, buzz me."

"I have seen three young ladies walk past with their knees showing," Holmes informed her when she got back to the hover-car. He spoke like a man who had seen so much that confused and frightened him that he grabbed at the most trivial thing because he could at least make some sense of it.

"Yeah, they do that," Lestrade humoured him as she powered up the craft. "You should see them at the beach."

"One of them seemed to be hovering."

"Hover-skates."

"Must everything fly in this city?"

"I guess it's the latest trend." The traffic heading towards Scotland Yard was light, which was a relief. "I reckon wheels are going to make a comeback, though. Kids these days are really into vintage stuff."

"Vintage," said Holmes dully. "Wheels are vintage."

"Guess you're pretty vintage too," Lestrade joked. Holmes did not look impressed. "I'm only kidding. You've got to have a twisted sense of humour to do this job. Otherwise you'd go mad."

Holmes regarded the traffic streaming through the sky around him. "Perhaps I already have."

* * *

 

Lestrade was able to convince the human end of the security system to let Holmes into Scotland Yard without too much issue, and they even managed to make it up to her office without running into Chief Inspector Grayson. Lestrade had explained about her flagrant disregard for procedure with regards to Holmes' resurrection and the need for discretion. Surprisingly--or perhaps not so surprisingly--Holmes seemed amenable to a certain amount of sneaking around.

Once they were safely barricaded in Lestrade's office, he listened carefully and attentively as she laid out the facts of the case, pulling up the full video from the bike shop and images of the other stolen items. Holmes asked questions both about the actual cases and also about the technology; the holo-projector in the surface of the table startled and then fascinated him. Being given a case to work on for the first time in twenty years had seemed to banish the scared, confused creature that had emerged from the rejuvenation machine, although Lestrade saw him twitch out of the corner of her eye whenever an airborne vehicle roared past the window, and his voice still sounded a little raspy.

"So what do you think?" Lestrade asked when she'd explained all she could.

"Truthfully, Inspector, I'm not sure what to think. Your theory so far is that our perpetrator is a... a copy, shall we say, of Moriarty. How do these copies come about?"

Lestrade shrugged. "Not entirely sure, I'm not a scientist, but I think it's almost like growing a plant. You start with a sample of DNA material--you know what that is? Nucleic acid?"

"I seem to recall Watson mentioning it. Some sort of substance found in living cells, yes? He was rather excited about a paper regarding it. I disregarded it as of passing interest but no real use at the time."

"Right, well, anyway, it turns out that your DNA determines your genetic make-up—they found that out sometime in the 20th century—and if you have a sample of DNA you can grow a copy of the source of the sample."

"You are saying," said Holmes slowly. "That someone has _grown_ another Moriarty?"

"Well, that's our working theory."

Holmes was silent in thought for a moment. "These copies—do they grow at the same rate as the originals?"

"I guess so."

"Interesting. The character in the... 'video' is approximately thirty years of age. If he is indeed a clone, as you call it, of Moriarty, then the masterminds behind his genesis set the wheels in motion at least thirty years ago. This is no idle game, for in that case they must at the very least have raised him through childhood."

"Oh my god, I hadn't even thought of that. You think they brought him up to be a criminal?"

"It's likely. When I was in active practice it was not unheard of amongst those who trafficked in human life and liberty. I cannot imagine that the world has changed so much."

Lestrade made a noise of disgust. "I almost feel sorry for the poor bastard."

"Don't. The Moriarty I knew was not raised in such a fashion and yet by the time I sent him over the falls at Reichenbach, his evil had permeated every part of this nation and further. There is a branch of philosophy which holds that a man may be born evil. I feel sure that the esteemed Professor is a strong argument in favour of that view."

"But what's his game? What do you reckon he wants?"

"If he acts on his own, then he wants nothing. Moriarty cared not a bit for money or power. He played the game because he could, and because no-one saw fit to stop him. You say you have found these marks on the latest two crime scenes, yes? Then he is getting bored."

"You mean he's playing us?"

"Like a violin, Inspector." And then Holmes did the strangest thing. He paused, as if he had remembered something, then held his hands up in front of his face and wiggled his fingers. He smiled, the closest he'd looked to happy so far, then the hands went behind his back once more, a stern look falling over his face like a curtain. "We must wait for his next move. He is restless now; sooner or later he must reveal himself."

And so they waited. Lestrade took the time to explain some of the recent technological developments in policing; Holmes seemed particularly taken with the manner analysis devices, and spent half an hour wandering around the office measuring the chemical content of tables, chairs, monitors and the fake potted plant by the window while Lestrade frantically answered e-mails, deflected demands for status updates and managed to talk the ever-present Stanley out of paying her a visit. Eventually her stomach reminded her that she hadn't eaten since the previous day, and she sent one of the floating admin drones down to the cafeteria to fetch them some lunch. Holmes looked relieved that sandwiches had apparently not gone out of fashion in the intervening years, although he did back pointedly away from the droid when it wished them a good afternoon and bobbed off to whatever it was they did all day.

Lestrade was showing Holmes how to work the DNA scanner when the call came in. The readout reported a robbery at the home of one Jeremiah Smith, who had arisen at his customary time of noon to find that the antique dolls' house he had been restoring for his nieces had been removed entirely and replaced by a calling-card with a stylishly rendered M on it. Lestrade immediately snatched up the call, and soon (after a narrow escape back through security) they were en route to the scene. This time Lestrade stuck to street-level as much as possible, since Holmes was still visibly rattled by the mid-air traffic.

Jeremiah Smith lived on the thirty-first floor of a block of flats overlooking the river, and was still in his dressing gown when he answered the door to them.

"It was right here when I went to bed last night," he explained as they stood in front of a conspicuously empty table in Smith's front room.

"What sort of dolls' house are we talking?" Lestrade asked.

"Great big antique one," said Smith. "Belonged to my gran way back when. I've been fixing it up for the girls; you know, putting in electricity, sensors and motors for the dolls, that sort of thing."

"So there wasn't any furniture in it?"

"No, hadn't got that far. It was completely empty."

"I see. You got surveillance?"

"Not in here, but there's cameras outside the flat. You'll have to com the building manager for that."

"I'll do that." Lestrade looked over at Holmes, who hadn't said a word so far. "Thoughts?"

"Does this window open?" Holmes asked, indicating the tall pane that revealed the towers and skyscrapers of central London.

"'Course, it's a Sacker field, whole building's got 'em," said Smith. "Button's on the wall to your left," he added.

Holmes pressed the switch and the entire pane vanished completely with a _whump_ of inrushing air.

"My word," he said quietly. "Lestrade, do you have the... that marvellous box that displays the chemical composition of materials?"

Lestrade handed him the matter analysis device and turned her attention to the card. Like the one left in the bike shop, it was a plain white card of the size once popular for exchanging contact details, with a large, elegant M written on it in what the matter analysis device had revealed was traditional India ink.

"What time did you say you went to bed, Mr Smith?" she asked.

"About one in the morning, maybe," Smith said with a shrug. "Not really sure."

"Halloa!" exclaimed Holmes from the window. "Mr Smith, what variety of paint was present on the outside of the dolls' house?"

"Er, the original, I guess," Smith said, scratching his head. "It was a sort of eggshell blue. Like I said, it was my gran's, so it was probably acrylic."

Holmes waved Lestrade over and pointed to the screen of the device. "See here, Inspector: there are trace amounts of a blue pigment and an 'acrylic polymer', whatever that may be, on the edge of the window. That is surely the paint in question, is it not?"

"So you think they got it out through the window? Into, what, a hover-car?"

"It seems likely. How wide was the dolls' house, Mr Smith?"

"53 centimetres," said Smith. "And 67 tall and 103 long. I should know, I re-carpeted the whole lot."

"Then there would have been very little room for manoeuvring the house through the window," said Holmes. "Which likely accounts for the chipped paint. I expect that... yes, there is another spot here, and here on the other side, and... hum."

"What is it?" asked Lestrade.

"There is a mark on the lower edge of the window, and your box appears to be unable to identify it."

"Really?" Lestrade took the device from Holmes. Sure enough, the screen was showing a large and obnoxious error message. "Damn. Okay, don't panic, I'll send the data off to the Yard's computers. They might be able to do something with it. In the meantime, at least we know he isn't working alone."

"Quite. This was a three-man job, at the very least, with two in here and one outside the window in one of your infernal flying cars."

On Holmes' suggestion, they scanned the rest of the room, but bar the window found it as bare of trace evidence as all the previous scenes. Lestrade sent a message off to the building manager asking for surveillance footage, and declared that there was nothing more to do now.

"We'll have to see if the Yard computers can make anything of that mark," she said. “In fact, let’s head back there now; they always work faster when you’re peering over the techies’ shoulders. Then we’d better go check up on the tin can. He was supposed to contact me when he was done with the books, and it's been hours. I'm a bit worried; he should be faster than that."

This time, as they took to the air, Lestrade noticed Holmes wasn't holding onto the car for dear life quite as much as he had done before.

* * *

"Reggie!"

The woman sat in front of the bank of monitors turned and grinned at Lestrade's exuberant entrance to the Yard's computer hub. "Beth! Nice to see you."

"And you. Mr Holmes, this is Rajita, one of our resident techies, we call her Reggie," Lestrade introduced, patting the woman companionably on the shoulder. "Reggie, this is Mr Holmes, he's consulting on a case. You the only one down here?" she asked.

"Yep, Marie's still off sick and Steve got called into the headmaster's office. Apparently his kid dismantled the classroom assistant. Again."

"Fantastic. Right, what happens in this room stays in this room, got it? Especially the fact that Mr Holmes is here. You get the data I sent you?"

"Let's see..." Reggie's hands made complicated motions in the air as she skimmed through the files. "Here we are: matter analysis. Oh, that looks ugly. Nothing doing with the portable devices, I suppose?"

"Nothing. Had a fit and I had to reboot it. I'm hoping you might be able to make more sense of it."

"I'll see what I can do. We'll try the same procedure first, see if the extra processing power helps." The console beeped gently as Reggie fired up the matter analysis software. There was a brief pause, then a series of stuttering beeps. Then all the lights went out.

"Ah," said Lestrade in the ensuing silent darkness.

"I assume that is not how it usually functions," came Holmes' voice from off to her left.

"Must have overloaded the system," Reggie said, mystified. "Should restart in a moment... ah, there we go." Gradually the console flickered back to life and the lights returned. "Let's not do that again."

"What the hell are we dealing with, Reggie?" asked Lestrade.

"I don't even know where to begin. We can't even analyse the data, so there's something seriously weird going on here."

"Ugh. Can we run some lo-fi tests? Spectroscopy, mag-res and so on? Old-school?"

Reggie shrugged. "Probably, although I'll have to get Forensics on board. Have you got a sample of whatever the hell this is?"

"Damn, no, we haven't. I guess we'll have to go back and-"

"If I may interrupt, Inspector," said Holmes, who was holding what looked like a piece of folded-up tissue. "I believe we do." And he unfolded the tissue to reveal a small flake of paint with a black smear across one corner. "I hope it's sufficient for our purposes."

"Holmes, you're a genius!" Lestrade exclaimed, and Holmes actually flushed at that. "Hang on, I've got a sample tube somewhere." She fished a small tube out of her pocket and carefully tipped the paint flake into it, sealing it up afterwards. "Can I leave this with you, Reggie?"

"I'll get right on it. Hey, Fido, here boy!" she called to one of the dormant admin drones arrayed along the back wall.

"See, not the only one who names droids," Lestrade muttered as Reggie dispatched the drone to Forensics with the sample. "Buzz me if you find anything. And give my love to Paula."

"Will do!"

* * *

"Nice girl, Reggie," said Lestrade mostly to herself as they were heading back to her flat. "Mad as a Martian, of course, but all techies are. And her wife makes the best devil's food cake I've ever tasted. Lethal combination, techies and cake. I got crumbs in my keyboard once and it's never been quite the same."

"Her _wife_?"

Lestrade grimaced. "Oh, right. I guess we were going to have this conversation sometime, might as well be now. Yeah, Reggie's a woman and she's married to Paula, who is also a woman. You can do that now."

“Good God,” breathed Holmes, and Lestrade regarded him out of the corner of her eye. She couldn’t decide if he sounded aghast or disgusted or just astonished. She wished, fleetingly but not for the first time, that Dr Watson had been there too. He would have been able to decipher Holmes’ tone.

"And may two men also be married?" Holmes asked after a while. He’d obviously been considering the question for some time.

"Yeah, sure. Any and all genders welcome, and you don't even have to argue about who has to wear the dress," Lestrade grinned. "My dad always said if I ever got married he wouldn't be surprised if I wore my uniform. Ha! 'course, we've still got a long way to go, what with the polyamorous crowd wanting legal recognition for multi-way partnerships, but progress is progress."

"Yes," said Holmes quietly. "Yes, it is."

* * *

 

Lestrade's flat looked like a bomb had hit it. Chairs had been overturned, the vase by the door had spilled its artificial contents all over the floor and the bookcase with her collection of paper books was only being prevented from falling over by the table that was in the way. There was no sign of life anywhere, but the door of the bedroom was open and she was sure she’d closed it when she’d left. Her copper's instincts flared and she reached for her ioniser pistol, flattening herself against the wall and motioning for Holmes to do the same. She inched along the wall, pistol at eye-level, until she came to the door of the bedroom. In one fluid movement she span around the corner with her gun at the ready. There was absolutely nothing to be seen.

Or rather, nearly nothing. From the doorway she could clearly see a red glow emanating from behind the bed. Three silent steps brought her into position, and she lunged around the bed to find her gun aimed at the cowering shape of a droid.

"Watson!" Lestrade sighed, lowering the pistol. "What're you doing down there?"

The droid looked up at her from where it sat hunched into a ball, hidden behind the bed. Its circuitry hummed for a moment, and then it said, in a voice Lestrade had never heard it use before:

"Help me!"

Lestrade blinked in surprise. "What? Why do you need me to-"

But she didn't have a chance to finish her sentence because it was then that the droid noticed Holmes, standing some distance behind her. Its reaction was astonishing.

"Holmes?" it cried in that same strange voice—it still sounded synthesised, but it was softer, rounder, more _human_ than anything Lestrade had ever heard a machine produce. "By... by Jove, it is you, isn't it? You look... my God, Holmes, what has happened to me?"

But if Lestrade was surprised at the droid’s reaction, it was nothing compared to what Holmes did next. His face contorted ever so briefly, then immediately went blank, although Lestrade could see the muscle twitching at the corner of his mouth which suggested he was trying very hard to keep his emotions in check. Then he turned around and walked straight out of the room.

"Holmes!" the droid practically wailed. In the distance, Lestrade heard the door of the flat shut.

She knelt down by the droid and reached out to touch its shoulder plate. It recoiled from her hand, the motors in its joints whining softly.

"It's okay," she tried to reassure it. "I can help, but you need to help me help you, okay?" she said in the same tone of voice she used for traumatised witnesses. In her mind she ran through the standard list of questions for troubleshooting wayward droids.  "What's your serial number and designation?"

"My... I don't know!" Lestrade had never heard a droid sound so panicked. "My... my name is Watson! Doctor John Watson!"


	4. I, Watson

To say that Lestrade was baffled would have been an enormous understatement. 'Flummoxed' was closer, but it didn't convey the startled edge to the feeling, and 'gobsmacked' neglected the hint of panic. She hadn't bothered to try and coax the droid out from behind the bed. Instead, she'd sat down on the floor next to it, as close as she could get without seeming too intimidating. The droid was huddled against the wall as if it were trying to make itself as small as possible, and its optical sensor was peering at her  like it was afraid she might do something terrible to it.

"I'm not breathing," the droid said, and its voice shook like there was a loose wire somewhere. "How can that be? I cannot feel my lungs. Or my face. My god, I can't feel my face."

Lestrade resisted the urge to say that that was because it didn't have one, but only because she was too busy worrying about the fact that she'd never heard a droid refer to feeling _anything_. They spoke in the passive tense, because why would you refer to an _I_ that doesn't exist?

"Okay, calm down..." Lestrade reached for the droid's arm. The droid flinched as she touched it, but didn't pull away.

"Where am I? What has happened to me?" it asked desperately.

"In a minute. I need you to tell me: what's the last thing you remember?"

"I... I don't know. My mind is..." The droid brought a hand to its head and seemed shocked by its shape. "I remember... war! The papers spoke of war. A great war across all Europe. Oh, please tell me that has not come to pass!"

"Er," said Lestrade. "We'll get to that later. What else do you remember?"

"I'm not sure. I... I remember events, people... Holmes! Where is Holmes? It was he that I saw, wasn't it? Please..."

"I need to call someone," Lestrade said. "They might be able to help. You stay here, okay? I'll be quick. It's gonna be okay, I promise."

 

* * *

 

 

"Can you keep a secret?" Lestrade asked Mike (or was it Dave?) over the vidcom to the Yard's robotics lab.

"Depends," replied possibly-Mike warily. "How much is it worth?"

"This is a big-time secret. I'm talking job-on-the-line big. In return I promise I won't keep you after hours for the next three months."

"Then my lips are sealed. Dave's, too. Spill."

Lestrade briefly summarised the pertinent facts of the Moriarty case, her suggestion, Grayson's express denial and her subsequent disobedience, Holmes' resurrection and finally the recent droid-related events.

"And you said it was ordered to scan a book?"

"Yes." Lestrade held up one of the leather-bound volumes so the robotechnician could see it. "They're Dr Watson’s journals, historical artefacts. And now he- _it_ thinks it's the author. And I mean, _really_ thinks."

Mike sighed. "Have you tried powering down and up again?"

"Don’t get smart with me."

"I don't think I get what's happened. Is it quoting from the book? I mean, if you ask it a question, does it answer in a quotation? I've seen that happen before."

"No!" Lestrade exclaimed in frustration. "I mean it genuinely believes it actually _is_ Dr Watson. It's talking in 19th century English, it thinks Holmes is its friend, it doesn't understand what's happening... it thinks it's human!"

"Christ. You mean it’s exhibiting evidence of sentience? Okay, tell you what. Bring it in tomorrow, we'll have a look at it. We might be able to restore factory settings without losing too much data.”

"But that would—yes, thanks, I'll do that. Is there anything I can do in the meantime? It's absolutely terrified!"

The technician shrugged. "Make it a cup of tea?"

 

* * *

 

Holmes was nowhere to be found. While she decided what to do about that, Lestrade ran a net search and commed absolutely everyone involved in the production and maintenance of the Yard droids that she could sensibly reach, ending with the Yard lab once more, where she got Dave this time.

"I just don't know what to do. This is completely unprecedented. I've vidcommed the techies, the developers, the programmers; no-one has seen anything like it."

"Have you considered playing along?" suggested Dave. "If it thinks it's actually Dr Watson, maybe it'll respond to Mr Holmes. Perhaps you could-"

"Absolutely not."

Lestrade turned. Holmes was standing by the door, his face like thunder and his hair and clothes damp; apparently, it was raining outside.

"I won't speak to that abomination. You've done enough with me already. Watson is dead, and I won't be party to this absurd farce."

Lestrade had to work very hard to keep herself from actually screaming at him. "Mr Holmes, that droid is _terrified_. I've no idea if it's broken or bugged or if by some miracle it actually _is_ your former partner but it is scared out of its circuits and it's asking for you. The least you could do is humour it."

Holmes said nothing for a long time, his eyes focussed elsewhere. "Very well," he said finally. "If nothing else, I may be able to convince you that the exercise is a futile one."

Lestrade apologised to Dave and promised to take the droid over to the Yard labs if it became a problem, then ended the call. She opened the bedroom door first.

"Hello again, Dr Watson," she said, trying to make her voice sound as cheery as possible. Even though the droid had no real face and only one optical sensor, she still felt it look right past her.

"Holmes!" it cried and tottered upright, its off-balance movements reminding her painfully of Holmes when he had first emerged from the cryostasis pod. "Holmes, for God's sake, it's me, I swear!"

Holmes took a step back, disgust evident on his face. "I knew Watson," he said. "You are not he. You are a machine. Cease this display, now."

"What are you-" The droid mirrored Holmes’ step, almost like an unconscious reaction. "Now, see here. My name is Dr John Watson, late of the Royal Army Medical Department, attached to the 66th Berkshires and previously the 5th Northumberland Fusiliers. You are Mr Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective. We shared a flat at 221b Baker Street, Westminster. You have a brother by the name of Mycroft. The first words you ever spoke to me were 'You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive'. What else must I do to convince you?"

"Our landlady's name?" Holmes asked.

"Mrs Hudson, of course!"

"Our pageboy?"

"Billy!"

Holmes narrowed his eyes. "When we moved to Sussex," he asked, each word sharp as a knife, "what was the name of our dog?"

"The name of our..." Circuitry sparked. "Holmes, _you_ moved to Sussex, when you retired. We never had a dog."

Holmes' eyes flared momentarily, then he turned and stormed out of the room again, this time slamming the door shut behind him. The droid made an odd little gasping sound and sank back onto the bed, its optical sensor focused at its hands and its shoulder plates slumped. It looked utterly dejected.

"Dr Watson?"

The droid looked up at her, its left hand curling and uncurling in its lap like a nervous tic. Lestrade sat down next to it and laid a comforting hand on its arm.

"You're going to have to give Mr Holmes a bit of space, okay?" she said. "He's... not taking this too well, what with everything that's happened..."

"What _has_ happened, miss?" the droid asked desperately. "I ask and ask and you give me nothing but vagaries and impossible answers. Please, if you know anything at all, I beg you tell me."

And Lestrade had an idea. It was a pack of lies, but they were lies that were probably more helpful than the truth at this point.

“This is going to be difficult to understand, Doctor," she said. "It's the year 2103, and we're in London. My name is Beth Lestrade. You knew my ancestor, back in the 19th century. We're working a case which we think is linked to the cases you and Mr Holmes solved. We needed Mr Holmes' help. I don't really understand how, but we've brought him back from the dead. We... we tried to do the same with you, but it didn't work properly. This-" and she touched the metallic arm next to her. "-was the best we could do. It might take a while for you to get used to it."

You and Holmes both, she thought but didn't say.

"May I speak with Mr Holmes?" the droid asked. "I must... I must see him. Please? He is my friend."

"I don't know. Maybe." Lestrade sighed. "If I can get him to come back. Look, he's... we're all under a lot of pressure right now. He probably didn't really mean to storm off like that. Do you want me to try and find him?"

"Would you?" The droid already sounded relieved. "Oh, please do. I... he's my friend."

"I know, Doc," said Lestrade. "I know."

* * *

She found Holmes on the balcony staring out at the rain sheeting down over the city.

"You gonna tell me what that was all about?" she asked, leaning on the railing next to him.

"That... that _thing_ is not Watson," he ground out through gritted teeth.

"No, it's not," Lestrade agreed in a placating tone. "But it _thinks_ it is."

"No," Holmes insisted. "If it thinks anything at all, which in itself is a ludicrous and abhorrent idea, it is that it is a character in a fanciful novel. It's like a child who has read a fairy tale and imagines themselves as the protagonist."

"So what was all the business with the dog?”

“It was a test,” said Holmes tightly.

“But Dr Watson never mentioned a dog in his stories."

"How could he?" Holmes rounded on her, eyes blazing. "Some things should never be printed. Do you seriously believe that everything in our lives occurred precisely as Watson wrote? That he was happily married but wilfully neglected his beloved spouse to continually endanger his own life at my side? That the same dear wife died mysteriously while I hunted down Moriarty's men and yet warranted a scarce few sentences to tell of her fate? That having spent the better part of my life sharing rooms with him I should one day decide to abandon him in London for a retirement in the countryside with only the bees for company?"

He inhaled sharply and looked away. For a moment the only sound was the hum of the city damped by the rain. Then Lestrade spoke, her voice somewhere between a laugh and a sob.

“So, you and the Doc...” She made a vague gesture in the air.

Holmes gave no sign of having heard her.

“It still rains here,” he said instead, perhaps a little louder than was necessary. “That at least has not changed.” Then he said nothing more for some time.

"What was the dog's name?" she asked when the silence became too much to bear.

"Gladstone."

She smiled, despite everything. "Like the bag?"

The corner of Holmes' mouth nearest her quirked up just for a moment. "When he was a pup, he would curl up in Watson's medical bag and sleep. It seemed appropriate.”

"I'm sorry," Lestrade said after a while. "I'm sorry for..." She made another vague gesture, taking in the skyline of London. "For all this. I didn't think about what would happen. I was just trying to do what was right for my city."

"If this is a plea for forgiveness," said Holmes, "then I am not sure I can oblige."

"No, no, I get that. I know I screwed up. But I still need your help. London needs your help. Hell, the whole country does. Please, can you just talk to Watson and-"

"No."

" _Please_ , just a quick-"

"Fifty years."

"What?" Lestrade was taken aback.

"Fifty years I knew him, and I loved him almost as long." Holmes' voice was barely above a whisper. "I held him in my arms until the end. Please, I beg of you; do not make me treat that thing as if it were him."

Perhaps it was the pleading voice, or the mist in his eyes, but suddenly she was hugging him. He tensed immediately and there was a moment when she was sure he would push her away, but then he relaxed and rather awkwardly returned the embrace.

"I'm sorry," she said for what felt like the thousandth time. "I'm so sorry."

"I know," said Holmes, and it wasn't much but it was a start.

 

* * *

 

 

Lestrade left Holmes out on the balcony when her communicator buzzed. It was the manager of the building where Jeremiah Smith lived, sending on the surveillance footage she'd requested. Unsurprisingly there was virtually nothing of use, until the last few seconds when one camera showed a dark blue hover-car careen past a window. She slowed the footage down until she was inching through frame-by-frame, and there was no mistaking that on the back seat of the car was a large cuboid shape, painted a pleasant eggshell blue.

"Gotcha."

"Miss Lestrade?" came a voice. The droid stood in the doorway of the bedroom, half-hidden behind the frame as if it was afraid to show itself. "I... wish to apologise for my conduct, and for the state of your flat," it said.

Lestrade looked around at the devastation. "Eh, it's been worse," she said with a shrug. "Although I'd appreciate a hand with the bookcase. And it's _Inspector_ Lestrade."

"My apologies, Inspector."

"And stop apologising. I'm saying sorry enough for both of us right now."

With a little coaxing she managed to convince the droid to come out from behind the doorframe and help her push the bookcase upright again. She made a perfunctory effort at replacing the books, and then abandoned it as unimportant.

"I guess there's not much more we can do here," she said. "We'd better-"

The alert signal sounded on her communicator; at the same time the droid suddenly said "Incoming Yard alert, Inspector!" and then clapped a hand over its mouth—or at least where its mouth would have been if it had had one—with a clang. Lestrade stared, open-mouthed.

"How did you do that?" she demanded.

"I don't know!" The droid sounded completely lost and more than a little scared. "I just... suddenly knew I had to say that. It was as if the words appeared in my mind. What does it mean?"

"Don't panic. It means that your Yard uplink is still working, and that Moriarty's on the move again." She opened the alert message. "It's a security system just a few streets over. Uniform are on their way but we're closer; we might be able to catch them in the act." She quickly checked her gun and equipment then dashed to the door onto the balcony.

"We've got eyes on Moriarty," she told Holmes, who wasn't looking much better than he'd been when she'd left him. "We need to move, and quickly."

"Very well." Holmes swept past her into the flat, and Lestrade jogged after him.

"Come on, Doc," she said to the droid; Holmes paused with his finger on the door release and turned a disgusted look on her.

"You cannot be suggesting we take that thing with us?"

“Now look here, Holmes,” the droid started, drawing itself up in an affronted manner, which was in itself a truly bizarre thing for a droid to do, but Lestrade got in first.

"We can argue about that in the car. Now, _move_!”


End file.
